Do you want to understand the life and times of Jesus and his followers but realize that you don't know a lot or have forgotten a lot about the Old Testament (the Hebrew Scriptures)? Here's a summary that will be very useful for you as you begin your study of the New Testament (a quick 20-25 minute read!)
Understanding
Our Jewish Spiritual Ancestors
I sometimes refer to the New Testament as a
kind of “village” in which some of our "spiritual ancestors" (such as Jesus,
Peter, Paul, Matthew, John, etc.) continue to live. When we read, study and
reflect on different New Testament texts, we can actually encounter the spiritual
ancestors who were responsible for starting the beginnings of the Christian
tradition—a tradition that became the foundation of civilizations, cultures,
and societies in history, among which is the Western civilization in which we
are living today.
These spiritual ancestors were all first
century common era (CE) Jews (with the exception perhaps of “grand-uncle” Luke).
As Jews who were born and lived during the time period that historians call “Second
Temple Judaism” (from around 515 BCE to 70 CE. Let us also include the immediate
aftermath of the Jerusalem temple’s destruction in the years after 70 CE up to
the turn of the century), they themselves were heirs of a long and venerable tradition
that was already considered “ancient” at the time and therefore even begrudgingly
respected in some way by their Roman conquerors. (The Romans had a deep esteem
for “antiquity,” that is, traditions that had a long, venerable history.)
Ancient Jews as a group had several common characteristics
that we will have to keep in mind if we are to understand—what can be
considered—a common Jewish worldview at the time. How do we do this? By
familiarizing ourselves better with some key areas of life as expressed by the following
questions:
- What were the stories, laws, poems, and other oral and written traditions that lay at the foundation of their worldview?
- What were the dominant religious-cultural symbols and practices that they valued?
- What were their most cherished hopes and dreams?
Components
of the Worldview of Our (New Testament) Spiritual Ancestors
We will be able to answer these questions
by studying what Jews call “TaNaK” or “the
Hebrew Bible/Scriptures” or what
is widely known among Christians as “The
Old Testament” (OT). What
this means in practice is that, for Christians and Westerners in general, some
knowledge of the OT is necessary in order to get to know their spiritual ancestry.
That is why the OT is an essential part of the Christian Bible which, as a
whole, is composed of two parts: The Old Testament (which is like a Part 1); and
the New Testament (which is tantamount to a Part 2).
So here are some of the key points (key
words will be in bold letters or italics) to keep in mind regarding this Jewish
background for us to understand our New Testament village ancestors which, it
should be remembered, even include Jesus (as a historical person).
First of all, ancient Jews were proud that
they were part of “Israel” (taken here primarily as a people-nation) which,
they believed, had been chosen in a special way by God to be the
Creator’s own special people and nation. (Technically, this idea of being
chosen is sometimes called divine election.) The people of Israel were bound
to God by a special “Covenant,” the primary component of which was the “Law” (Torah) that God had given them through
Moses and was, in turn, elaborated upon by the many prophets, sages, and various
other teachers throughout Israel’s history. In the Jewish Tradition, it is
often said that there are 613 commandments of this “Law” (That number includes
the Ten Commandments that are more familiar to Christians).
Ancient Jews also valued immensely the
geographical “Land” (also referred to as “Israel”) which, they
believed, God had given to them as Abraham’s descendants. The Land (of Israel) was
holy but its cultic center, Jerusalem, was especially so because on it stood the Temple where God—they believed—was present in a special
way.
Moreover, it is also necessary to know the
general plot of an extended “sacred
story” that—we can say—was the
foundation of how our first century Jewish spiritual ancestors understood
history or the story of the world. I often refer to it as the “story-plot” or
simply “the story” that was told by parents to their children as an
essential part of raising them as Jewish and, hence, every Jewish boy or
girl at the time would have learned the gist and main lessons of this storyline
as they grew up. This was in turn the basis of the worldview by which ancient
Jews viewed, understood, and mentally organized everything: God, the world,
life itself and all the other details in their world. Having a grasp of the
basic flow of this story found in the OT is, therefore, essential for us to
understand the common mindset of our spiritual ancestors whose voices are preserved
in the New Testament village.
I divide this extended storyline into several
sub-headings using the following key themes. They are: Creation, Nation,
Flight, Fight-Settlement, Kingdom(s) and Exile, Return-Rebuilding, Further
Struggles with Empires, and Hope. These notions, I think, can summarize
well the spirit of the story that parents told their children at the time. This
is the same narrative plot that the wider culture expected everyone to know
well during what is called Second Temple Judaism.
This then is the main outline of the
extended story that all our spiritual ancestors in the New Testament village
were familiar with. (Let me use the “historical present” to narrate the
extended plot for vividness.)
The
Extended Story-Plot from the Hebrew Scriptures/Old Testament
[Creation] God
creates the world and everything in it,
culminating in the fashioning of the first humans—male and female— who bear God’s
very “image” (Western Christians refer to this as Imago Dei "God’s
image"). The seventh day is special because God rested after all the work of
creation. That—it is pointed out—is the origin of the all-important Sabbath
practice. The humans are entrusted with the care and stewardship of creation. They
are put in an idyllic world described as a garden with the proscription, however,
that they should not eat of a forbidden “fruit” (Gen 1-2). The first male and
female fail in this, giving in to the prodding of a serpent in the garden, and end
up partaking of the forbidden fruit. This event has often been described in
Christianity as “the Fall.” This act damages the once perfect relationship
between God and humans and, thus, the first ancestors (commonly called “Adam”
and “Eve”) are driven away from the garden (Gen 3). They and all their
descendants after them are burdened with suffering and eventual death as a
result of this disobedience. The point of this story for ancient Jews (as well
as those who continue to read this story) is arguably to explain the origin of the
many unfortunate things that assail humanity and why evil and suffering are so
pervasive in human life. The entry of evil into the human story is portrayed
eloquently in the stories that follow in quick succession: Cain (Adam and Eve’s
son) murders his brother Abel (Gen 4); in time, the world becomes so evil that
God decides to destroy everything and, as it were, restart creation with a
clean slate through a flood. God spares a limited number of beings from the
flood’s destruction. Thus, Noah and his family and a limited number of species
of animals survive the destructive waters by riding out the storm in an ark (Gen
6-9); humans build a tower aiming to “reach the sky” but God confounds their
plan by mixing up their languages at Babel (Gen 11), and so forth.
[Nation] Sometime later (always in the context of the
expansion and multiplication of evil and suffering in the world), God chooses a
man who is later given the name “Abraham” (meaning “father of multitudes”).
Abraham is destined to be the origin and ancestral father of a nation of people who will be bound to God in a special way and a source
of blessing to the whole world (Gen 12-18). Thus, the interactions between God
and Abraham become key to the ancient Jewish story as a symbolic story of who
the people of Israel should be. Abraham is called to trust in God (this is what
“faith” is) through an invitation to leave his homeland and go to an unknown
place that God will give to him (the “Land”). Abraham decides to trust in this
God, accepts the invitation, and sets out for the “promised land.” God makes a
covenant with Abraham and all his descendants who—it is promised—will be as
numerous as “the stars in the sky.” The physical sign of the covenant will be
the mark of circumcision. Abraham’s descendants after him (Isaac, Jacob
and his offspring) multiply and become a clan. They eventually end up in Egypt
because of a famine in the land where they were living and are initially
welcomed in Egypt as guests because of Jacob’s beloved son Joseph who had meanwhile
risen from being a slave to become an important official in that land (Gen
21-49).
[Flight] This phase
of the story traditionally falls under the moniker “Exodus,” which is also the
title of the second book of the Hebrew Scriptures in its Greek translation. It
is a word that means “departure” of a large mass of people (hence, “flight”). After
hundreds of years of living in the land of Egypt, the descendants of Jacob are
enslaved by a pharaoh who did not know Joseph. The people suffer terribly from
oppression and cry out to God. God then chooses Moses as the
one who will be God’s agent in freeing the Israelites from slavery and leading
them out of Egypt back to the land that was given to the patriarchs (Abraham,
his son Isaac, and Jacob also known as “Israel” himself). Inspite of the
vehement efforts on the part of Pharaoh to prevent their flight from Egypt, through
the power of God, the people cross the Red Sea and pass over from slavery to
freedom. In the wilderness, they have different important experiences: On Mt.
Sinai, they receive the Law from God through Moses; they experience the power
and protection of God at every stage of the journey; they are caught up in a
cycle of rebellion and repentance with regard to their covenant with God. In
the end, they have to wander the desert for forty years before finally being
able to enter into the land that God had promised to their ancestors (See
Exodus through Deuteronomy).
[Fight
and Settlement] After their long wandering in the desert, the
Israelites are finally allowed to enter the Promised Land with Joshua this time
as their leader. But it is not an easy task. Although “the Land” has been
promised to them and was inhabited by the patriarchs before them, this time,
they have to struggle and fight with other groups of people who are already there
(such as Canaanites, the Amalekites, the Midianites, etc.) (Consult the book of
Joshua). Although the promised land is divided according to the different
tribes of Israel and apportioned to them, the Book of Judges gives us the impression
that struggles with the other inhabitants of the common area continue for a
while even after the initial settlement. The Israelites are led for a while by a
diverse and ad hoc group of leaders called “Judges” who are raised by God when
there is a need for decisive leadership during times of crisis. (See the Book
of Judges.)
[Kingdom(s)
and Exile] After a while, the Israelites ask for a king
to rule over them. Thus, God, through the prophet Samuel, appoints Saul for
this role. When Saul goes against God’s directives, the shepherd boy, David, is anointed in his place to be the future ruler. David
displays his mettle particularly against the Philistine “giant” Goliath whom he
defeats in the battlefield. In time, after many struggles, David finally becomes
king of Israel. He unites the different tribes and solidifies the kingdom with
the capital in Jerusalem. His son, Solomon, follows him as king of a united kingdom. Solomon starts
out as a good and wise king. He builds the first temple in Jerusalem. However,
later on in life, he displays some fatal flaws such as idolatry and the imposition
of oppressive measures against his people. After his death, the once united
kingdom is divided into two. Ten tribes separate from Solomon’s line to make up
the “northern” kingdom called “Israel” and two tribes dominated by the tribe of
Judah make up the “southern” kingdom known as Judah. These two kingdoms are led
by a succession of mostly evil kings. These unfaithful steward-kings often lead
the people of Israel astray in many ways and thus Israel, the nation, is mostly
unfaithful to the covenant in a collective way. This long and sorry history is told
from a perspective that wants to teach its audience an important lesson: that unfaithfulness
to the covenant and its sins are what caused God’s judgment that allowed the
many catastrophes to happen to Israel in history. The northern kingdom was
finally devastated by the Assyrian empire in 722 BCE and its inhabitants were
scattered in many different areas. The southern kingdom was defeated by the
Babylonians in 587-86 with Solomon’s temple destroyed and the leading
inhabitants of Judah led into exile to Babylon. With the dispersal of the
northern tribes of Israel, it was mainly the people of the southern kingdom (composed
mainly of people from the tribe of “Judah,” which is where the term “Jews” ultimately
come from) that carried on the legacy of Israel. From this point onwards, the “chosen
people” of Yahweh are also commonly referred to as “Jews.” The time that many
Jews spent in captivity in Babylon is commonly known as the “Babylonian exile”
(585-538 BCE). (This story-plot is found mainly in 1-2 Samuel and 1-2 Kings)
[Prophets]
We must not forget the pivotal role that people
called “prophets” played particularly in this tumultuous time in ancient
Israelite history. The prophets are commonly yet mistakenly thought of mainly as
people who could foretell the future. Their primary role instead in the sacred
story of Israel is, above all, to “to speak on behalf of God.” They were called
by God to be spokespersons of what God’s people needed to hear at any given
time, whether that be warning, correction, condemnation, consolation, guidance
or encouragement. Among the prophets are names such as Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel,
and so forth. (See the books of the Bible bearing the names of these different
prophets.)
[Return
and Rebuilding] Eventually, a new imperial power arises—the
Persian empire under Cyrus the Great—and it conquers the Babylonian empire in
539. The Persians allow the Jews to go back to their ancestral homeland. Thus, many
Jews return from the Babylonian exile and rebuild the temple in Jerusalem. This
new temple is called the “Second Temple” and this is why the historical period
in which there is a second temple standing in Jerusalem is called “Second
Temple Judaism” (until its destruction by the Romans in 70 CE). The
resettlement of “Palestine” (this is an alternative term to refer to the area
that we’ve been calling “Israel” so far) after the Babylonian exile is particularly
important for us because it is toward the end of this second temple Judaism era
that the people who were going to start the Christian tradition—Jesus and his
earliest followers—lived. The last 70 years of this epoch as well as its
immediate aftermath are crucially noteworthy for us who are trying to better understand
the environment in which our spiritual ancestors lived. (The final years of the
divided kingdoms are described in 2 Kings and Second Chronicles. Different
events and teachings related to the Persian or Babylonian exilic periods are
scattered in various books of the Old Testament such as the prophetic books,
Esther, Psalms, and so forth)
[Further
Struggles with Empires] The resettled Jews in Palestine enjoy relative
peace and stability during the Persian period (539-330 BCE). We can say that
there is something like a religious and cultural revival during this time
brought about by the rebuilding of the Jerusalem temple and the city’s walls
(See the books of Ezra and Nehemiah). One can say that the dominant lesson emphasized
so far was that fidelity to the covenant between God and Israel is reemphasized
as of utmost importance for the land and people of Israel: Obviously, faithfulness guarantees Israel’s flourishing and its opposite, unfaithfulness, brings about disaster. (Scholars often point out
that this is the main message of the school of ancient scripture editors called
the “Deuteronomistic” school.) But then again, a new imperial power flexes its
muscles with the appearance of Alexander the Great of Macedonia (356-323 BCE),
whose lightning conquests during his relatively short life extends his Hellenistic
empire to an area that comprised one of the largest empires the world had seen
up to that point. (“Hellenistic” refers to the Greek language and culture.) His
death at the age of thirty-two though cuts short that conquering march and his
generals divvy up his Hellenistic empire amongst themselves. Two of these, the Seleucid Empire based in Antioch-on-the-Orontes River in ancient
Syria (in modern-day Turkey), and the Ptolemaic Empire based in
Egypt, fought for a while amongst themselves for control of certain areas
including Palestine. In this way, Palestine at this time was controlled
alternatively by one or the other of these two Hellenistic empires. When the Seleucid
ruler, Antiochus IV Epiphanes, forced the Jews to adopt Hellenistic practices
that violated the tenets of their faith, they revolted against their Seleucid
overlords in what is called “the Maccabean Revolt” (because it was initially
led by the family of a certain Judas “Maccabeus” [meaning “God’s hammer”]).
They were successful in a limited sense with their revolt. That allowed the
Jews to be independent for a while (142-63 BCE). (Consult the Books of the
Maccabees.) However, that all came crashing down when the Roman general Pompey
occupied Palestine in 63 BCE as part of the expansion of the new imperial
power—Rome. Thus, the Roman occupation of Palestine begins and goes on until the
early seventh century CE when it passes over to the invading Muslim armies.
[Hope
for the Coming of God’s New Order or “Reign”] Sometime after the Babylonian
exile (around the third century BCE), a type of literature commonly described
as “apocalyptic” begins to appear. These apocalyptic writings are filled with mysterious
and cryptic language and symbols that express a strong hope that God would directly
intervene in history to defeat evil. Evil is of course identified with the
empires that conquered and oppressed God’s land and people. Future apocalyptic
events are imaged as cosmic and catastrophic events. Throughout their history,
the people of God always looked back to the past, particularly, to the
foundational event when God freed their ancestors from slavery in Egypt, in
order to draw hope that God will deliver them again when they need God’s help.
One can say that with their continuing experience of being conquered and
oppressed by one empire after another, the Jews had to add an extra way to cope
with suffering by envisioning a glorious future when God would act once again
in power to defeat Israel’s enemies and restore the chosen people and nation to
a glorious state. Many Jews held the belief that God would send a chosen one, a
“messiah”-like figure who would be akin to Moses and David of old and be the
agent of God’s deliverance and healing. (Consult Daniel and some books that are
classified as “intertestamental” or “pseudepigraphal” literature such as the
Book of Enoch)
And
Here We Are: The Times of Jesus and His Followers
And it is here where we come at last to the
particular context in which our New Testament spiritual ancestors lived: Jesus,
his immediate followers, and later generations of people (who would eventually come
to believe in Jesus as the messiah sent from God and write about him) are
located in this late
Second Temple Jewish context (and
its immediate aftermath). The more we understand it, the more we also come
to better grasp their hopes and dreams, the causes that moved them to live as
they did, the reasons why they came to trust and have faith that the
rabbi-healer from Nazareth named “Jesus” was the long-awaited messiah of God,
sent to deliver them and usher in the reign of Israel’s God.
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